Last night at about 11, someone knocked on my door. Now since I just moved to a new house, I’m a little bit apprehensive. I don’t really know much about my new neighborhood. I went from the relative safety of a crowded apartment complex, where I lived safely on the second floor, to what feels like a very exposed house. My oldest brother told me a needed to stop watching Law & Order: SVU when I told him that I didn’t want my bed under a window last week.
According to him, I’m neurotic. But I don’t really feel like I’m neurotic. I feel like someone who worked the crime beat at a newspaper, someone who spent every morning for several months reading police report after police report about the terrible things that people do to other people.
So when the late-night knock at the door came, I was a bit nervous. But thinking that it might just be that very older brother, I flipped on the front porch light and answered the door. When I opened it, there stood a woman about my age. I’d never seen her before in my life.
She asked if we happened to have an infant that drank soy formula. I told her that, no, all we had was a cat. I motioned to the fat beast on the floor by the door as I said that. Now as this is all going down, I’ve got a lot of thoughts running through my head:
- It’s 11 p.m. and this woman has a hungry baby at home.
- It’s 11 p.m. and this woman has a man in the car waiting to help her rob me.
- It’s 11 p.m. and this woman is scoping out my house for a burglary at a later time when I’m not home.
She told me the name of the street where she lived, which naturally meant nothing to me since I’m new to the neighborhood, and said she was about $10 short to buy formula. My natural reaction is one of compassion. This woman was desperate enough to be knocking on strangers’ doors late at night in order to feed her baby. I had absolutely no cash on me – I rarely do. And I knew I didn’t have any cash because I’d had to pay for a $1.75 purchase at the gas station with my debit card earlier in the day. But I also knew that the “I’m sorry, I have no cash” excuse landed hollow – and probably as untruthful – to her ears.
I wanted to get my purse to double check, and to show her that, in fact, I had no cash to give her. I would have been glad to share a $20 with her if I’d had it available. But I didn’t have it. And I’m smart enough to not a.) turn my back on a stranger at my door, and b.) get & open my wallet in front of a stranger at the door.
The only thing I could think to do was to follow her to the grocery store and buy some formula with my debit card. But before I’d worked through my head if that, too, was insanely risky, she said OK and turned to leave. I wished her luck, closed the door, and felt terrible.
Had I just left a desperate mother with a hungry baby out to continue knocking on doors? Or had I just averted something potentially bad from happening to me? Chances are, it was the former, not the latter. And I can’t get that off of my mind.
I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that a couple of of things were odd about it. First of all, wouldn’t she have realized before 11 p.m. on a Sunday night that she was out of formula? And while it could just be the uncertainty of being in a new house in a new neighborhood, something just didn’t seem quite right about the whole thing. I can’t explain what it was. But something seemed off enough to make me hesitate before I offered to go with her to the grocery store.
It makes me sad to realize that we live in a world where we have to consider our own safety before we can help out our neighbor. My own beliefs tell me to help my neighbor. So I had no cash to hand her. I had no formula to give her. I could have gotten in my car, driven to the grocery store, and bought some formula. And that feels to me like that would have been the right thing to do. I could have helped someone who probably needed it. But as I was running through my head whether or not that was a smart thing to do, she turned to leave.
If it happened again, I’m still not sure that I’d feel comfortable going out that late with a stranger to the store. But I think I would do something differently. I’d probably take the risk, get a friend on the phone on the way to the store, and hope that I was doing the right thing – and not driving into my own demise! (Yes, that’s probably a bit overdramatic).
But I did go to the ATM today and took out a few $20s. Next time, I’ll be prepared …
… but probably no less neurotic.
